Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1887-05-07
BILL ARP.
He Talks About Yankee Education.
Honest Georgia Against Massachusetts
"Cul'chah."
Atlanta Constitution.

The perilS OF education are alarm
ing. | mean education without NOR
al and industrial training. Teachers
and professors have but little to do
with this. Their sole business is to
teach from the books. If the pupil
stands well in mathematics, in Greek
and Latin and logic and rhetoric and
philosophy, he is doing splendid.
That is the big thing. In fact, it is
everything so far as the teacher is
concerned; and almost everything
with the parents. The result is that
thousands OF boys are being educated
as experts in Incidence, in avoiding
work, and in many cases they resort
10 forgery and embezzlement and Oh
tanning money under false pretences.
1t is now an open secret at the north
that education increases crime, not
just a little but immensely. AS illit-
eracy decreases crime increases in a
geometrical ratio. They are almost
met with the startling question which
is the best, comparative ignorance
with honesty or high culture with
dishonesty?
Let us loook at the figures as fur
nished by Mr.. George X. Stetson, of
Boston, n philosopher, a thinker, a
patriot. In 1850 there were, in round
numbers, one million of people in
Massachusetts and ,236 prisoners
prisoner to S04 of the population.
AS education progressed crime pro-
gressed. Education walked and crime
ran-until in 1884 there was (65, ,000)
siXty-tive thousand arrests, or one ar
rest for every 20 Of the population;
and assuming that five persons con-
stitute a family, we have the alarm
ing result of one arrest to every six
families iT the State. The criminals
in the house of correction of Hamp-
den county increased from 1868 to
| ,131 in less than twenty years. The
population increased only 100 per
cent while crime increased 312. In
the last five years it increased Sc per
cent, and the sheriff in his report says
this condition will probably con-
tinue.
Continue how long, 1 wonder.
VIII it be until, like Sodom and
Gomorrah, there be not ten righteous
men left? In 1888, there We're 1,100
commitments more than 1882. Mr..
Stetson shows that in this rapid in
crease of crime the native population
is just as bad as the foreign.
Then, again, look at the divorces
class of statistics from which the
| foreign element is eliminated. In
1868 there was but one divorce to
3,134 persons. In 1880 there was one
to 1857. In the last ten years
divorces have increased more than
twice as rapidly as marriages, and
more than three times as rapidly as
population. DR.. Dorchester says:
''The most liberal view of the ques-
tion can but awaken concern for the
permanence of social order and the
stability Of public virtue.
"In Massachusetts, there was in
1882 one divorce to every thirty-foui
marriages, and the ratio increasing
every year. In Rhode Island, one tC
fourteen and in Connecticut one tC
eleven.
But the number of divorces does
not represent half the number of un
happy marriages or unbroken mar
riage VOWS, cases that do not get into
the courts, and hence it can be safely
estimated that not more than eigh
families in ten have preserved tht
purity on which depends not only
the welfare of society, but the per
petuity Of thenation.
Mr.. StetSOn says: "Public morals
are now 50 low that vast conspiracie
are entered into to defraud whole
communities corporations organized
to defraud the innocent and unwary-
public Office prostituted to persona
gain and the capital of banks gambleC
with by persons high in social posi-
ton.
eve find the public press pander
ing to low vulgar curiosity in dis
gusting deatails of crimes agains
public order and decency, to satisfy
morbid public craving.
"We find that the books of tn
least value have the greatest circula
ton.
"We find that the largest numbe
of the regular attendants go to churcl
in search of amusement and intel
: lectual qualification, rather than fo
worship or instruction"
| These admissions are alarming t
every lover of his country-to ever
parent who feels parental solicitud
for the welfare of his children.
We congratulate our people-ou
people of Georgia and the South
that we are still far removed fror
this lamentable condition. Gu
county of Barlow is an average cour
ty, perhaps no better, no worse, tha
the general population of the South
and here we have population of %
600, two-thirds white, and onl
ninety-eight arrests for crime in til
past year. Seventy-two of thes
were negroes, but we will draw n
race distinctions, and it is one in 25(
while in Massachusetts, it is one i
twenty-nine. If we estimate tn
whites alone it is one in 65u.
Then compare the divorces. Ther
were only three suits for divorce las
year, that is one divorce to more tina
1000 people and only three divorce
to every 1870 marriges.
No wonder that Carter Harriso
declines to run again for mayor {
Chicago. He says he needs rest an
he fears that if he should again a,